As computer networks grow in both size and complexity, the need for complex networks to share resources efficiently has increased. Distributed computing environments have been created for this purpose. With the increase in size and complexity of computer networks, the need for, and difficulty of, monitoring data flow within the network has increased. One such area of concern is network security and, particularly, vulnerability to interruption by anomalies. Typically, in order to monitor information related to anomalies within a network device—such as a switch or router—a record in a database may be created each time a data unit associated with a data flow is received and/or sent.
As the amount of data flows that may be transmitted through network devices is quite substantial, the process of updating the database stored in the central location commonly grows too unwieldy to permit efficient access to the central database by elements in the device.